The Untapped Potential of Tenant Unions

Long Nguyen

I tried talking to my coworkers at Boeing about tenant unions, asking what they were and if they knew any that existed. They had never heard of the term before. With rents being unaffordable, more people need to know what a tenant union is. They are one more tool that socialists, the unemployed, the working class, the small landlords and the oppressed can use to fight capitalism.

The tenant union is a form of organization that has existed historically to fight against landlords. It has been used as a defense mechanism by tenants against poor living conditions and skyrocketing rents. The socialists of the past have helped with forming tenant unions despite the fact that a single tenant union in a single building in a single city will not end capitalism. 

There are important forms of organization that have been lost to militant workers. The tenant union is one of these forms. We socialists need to rebuild these forms of organizations. It is not sufficient to work in just elections or just trade unions or just amongst the existing organized socialist left. Where the opportunity arises to build a tenant union, we should be there to help struggle alongside it and learn what we can from that struggle.

The rent strike

Rent is a burden that workers face every month. The Communist Party in the Bronx in 1932 found that the demand for lower rent brought people into struggle that never would have joined before. 

A report from the Communist Party’s internal bulletin in 1932 stated, “In organizing House and Block Committees, we found that the rent problem is one of the most burning …. I think we can state that the Party as a whole up till the present time underestimated the immense possibilities …. these rent strikes are developing not only amongst the poor workers, living in fire traps, paying 20-25 dollars a week, but also amongst the ‘better paid’ workers.”

These tenants might also be workers that could then be brought into the unions, and some of those could be shop organizers and militant socialist leaders. 

Not only did these Bronx tenants fight for lower rent, but they also participated in demands for immediate unemployment relief and unemployment insurance. In organizing house and block committees for lower rents, the communists were able to unite the employed and unemployed workers in their common demands. It shows that fighting in the trade unions for economic demands is not the only method for engaging workers in political action.

Strikes for demands of lower rent from thousands of workers would become fights against the courts and the police. Workers would draw the conclusion that these institutions were on the side of the landlords. The rent strikes would also create a question of which political parties to rely on. The strikers would very quickly realize that the Democratic and Republican parties were not on their side. These two parties will consistently mobilize the cops and courts against strikers. 

Unfortunately, the socialist and communist leaders of the 1930s betrayed workers on all these political questions. They often attacked the left wing of the movement and took a sectarian approach, while building illusions in capitalist “reformers” and strikebreakers like NYC Mayor Fiorello La Guardia or FDR.

Skyrocketing rents and poor housing conditions are just as much of a crisis today, but with very little organization of tenant unions. In 2024, the Kansas City Tenants Union went on strike. Tenants from Independence Towers and Quality Hill Towers faced poor living conditions with maintenance reports going unaddressed. After a nine month rent strike, the tenants won. They had accumulated nearly $300,000 of unpaid rent which was written off as part of the agreement. The strikers won repairs for their HVAC and repairs to their dwellings. 

The tenants in Kansas City have won important victories. But the leadership of the KC Tenants organization has also hitched itself to the Democratic Party. Its political strategy has been to elect standard-fare Democrats like Johnathan Duncan to the city council. Duncan was elected in 2023 with the backing of KC Tenants. Earlier this year, Duncan voted to throw LGBTQ people under the bus and re-legalize gay and trans conversion therapy in Kansas City. It’s only a matter of time before he sells out renters, too.

The role of socialists

Socialists should never be happy with settling for reforms within capitalism. We want to crush the system where the bosses pay wages for labor, and we pay those wages back to the landlord. We fight to replace it with a system where the workers are their own bosses. For us, it is not sufficient for there to be tenant unions. These organizations have to be a tactic in a broader strategy of bringing the tenants to meet an international audience of workers struggling for control of the workplace and society. Rent strikes could become political fights demanding rent control on the wider city or state level. And beyond that, they could be actions leading into nationalizing housing. 

Small landlords should recognize they have a shared interest in attacking the big banks, corporate landlords, and lenders. They are in a middling position, where their only class mobility is downwards into the ranks of the working class. Many of them are renting out units because they can’t afford their own mortgage or other bills. They share an interest with their tenants, workers and fellow small landlords to organize a fight against big capital. Unfortunately, many of them end up doing the work of the corporate landlord lobby instead. 

We need a political party and program that can unite workers and renters, and polarize society along class lines. We need to fight for revolutionary leadership of the tenants unions and all working-class organizations. The big landlords will only  be swept away by a rising tide of outrage at the parasitic and anti social behavior of the entire capitalist class.